A former St. Augustine BMX track manager was among the roughly 1,600 Jan. 6 protesters pardoned by President Trump last week.
Anthony Sargent, 48, was sentenced to five years in prison in Dec. 2023 for his actions during the post -election melee.
The Proud Boy pleaded guilty to a felony charge of civil disorder and several misdemeanor raps, including entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds.
Federal prosecutors said Sargent shoved officers and hurled an object at a Capitol building door in an attempt to break a glass panel.
At his sentencing, Sargent told Judge Dabney Friedrich that he was attempting to breach the building to help restore order inside.
But Friedrich rejected that assertion, and sentenced him to well above the term proposed by prosecutors in the case.
“I wish I hadn’t done it,” he said at the proceeding, according to CBS News. “I’m not a violent person. I have massive respect for law enforcement.”
A 2015 profile in the St. Augustine Record reported that Sargent worked as a track manager at First Coast BMX and had teenage sons at the time.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he was released Jan. 21.
Sargent did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Trump cast the Jan. 6 arrests and punishments as politically motivated overreach in presenting the pardons.
“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation,” a White House statement accompanying the order stated.
Democrats have condemned the action, asserting that the prosecutions were justified.
Every Democratic senator — save for Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman — signed a resolution Monday denouncing Trump’s action.
“The Senate disapproves of any pardons for individuals who were found guilty of assaulting Capitol Police officers,” the single-line resolution reads.
